Smoker ovens are widely employed in domestic and, especially, commercial applications to slowly cook and process meats, poultry and fish (hereinafter "meats"). Typically, these meats are hung or suspended in a large oven wherein desirable wood chips of choice are heated to a smoldering temperature thereby providing heat to cook the meat and smoke to flavor the same. The exceptional flavoring of smoked meats can only be attained through this special process. Unfortunately, because of the nature of this slow process, the meats often become too dry, leathery and non-palatal. Moreover, the cooking byproducts ordinarily adhere to and are slowly baked onto the oven walls resulting in extensive labor to clean the oven.
As smoke cooking takes place, oil, grease and other cooking byproducts slowly drip from the meats which accumulate or puddle at the bottom surface of the oven, or are splattered onto the walls. To help alleviate some of these problems, removable drip pans or slidable trays are sometimes placed at the bottom to collect the aforementioned drippings.
Typical of prior art smoker ovens are the ovens disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,375,775 to Folmar and U.S. Pat. No. 3,555,995 to Berger each of which describes an oven containing a slidable tray positioned near the bottom of the oven to collect drippings which may otherwise accumulate on the bottom.
Such an approach, nonetheless, becomes problematic when such drippings hit the sides of the tray which promote splattering and baking onto the walls. The cooking byproducts often become baked onto the oven surfaces which substantially increase adherence. Removing the wall splatter, therefore, requires highly pressured scrubbing or brushing of the interior walls. Other times, the drippings miss the tray completely and fall through to the oven floor. Moreover, the tray must be manually removed and cleaned to discard the drippings from the tray. Accordingly, cleaning is very difficult and often very laborious once the dripping solidifies.
In still other instances, as previously mentioned, because of the relatively low heats involved during this process, the cook time is substantially longer than that required in conventional cooking. Slow evaporation occurs which substantially dries and shrinks the cooked product. To combat the evaporatory effects of smoker ovens, water is often introduced into the dripping trays to humidify the cooking area, reduce cooking evaporation and reduce meat shrinkage. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,924,071 to Jacobs, U.S. Pat. No. 4,495,860 to Hitch et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,295 to Boswell et al. disclose cooking apparatus which provide trays filled with water proximate the bottom of the oven. However, in all the aforementioned references, the meat drippings may similarly splatter onto the oven walls after hitting the tray sides which again requires extensive labor for removal. Moreover, to clean or refill the trays, removal from the oven is necessary.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a smoker oven apparatus and method which will reduce the need for cleaning the oven.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a smoker oven apparatus and method which substantially eliminates meat drippings from accumulating at the bottom surface of the oven.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a smoker oven apparatus and method which reduces meat drippings from splattering onto the smoker oven walls.
Yet another object of the present invention to provide a smoker oven apparatus and method which eases the task of cleaning the oven.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a smoker oven apparatus and method which reduces product shrinkage.
Still it is a further object of the present invention to provide a smoker oven apparatus and method which facilitates water removal and refilling of the same inside a humidified smoker oven.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a smoker oven apparatus which is durable, compact, simple to use, easy to maintain, and is economical to manufacture.
The device of the present invention has other objects and features of advantage which will become apparent from and are set forth in more detail in the description of the Best Mode of Carrying out the Invention and the accompanying drawing.